Hasta La Gadget!

On Wednesday, we opened voting so you can help us choose five finalists in our first Insert Coin: New Challengers competition. It was hard enough for Engadget editors to decide on 10 semifinalists out of the myriad awesome crowdfunded projects entered, including such futuristic fare as bipedal robots, high-tech puppetry and more. Now it’s your turn to pick which final five entrants will also present on stage at Expand this March for the chance to win a total of $25,000: $5,000 for the Reader’s Choice winner and a whopping $20,000 Grand Prize. Voting closes this coming Wednesday, February 27 at 12:30pm PST / 3:30pm EST, so get your vote in!

To celebrate the DIY ingenuity and high tech innovation demonstrated by our intrepid entrants, we’re running an Insert Coin Twitter Giveaway that gives a little something back to all the makers out there. We’re giving away the following three kit prizes: Grand Prize is the Egg-Bot, an art robot that draws intricate designs on eggs or other round objects including ornaments, golf balls, and light bulbs; 2nd Prize is an Apple 1 Replica Kit designed with permission from the Apple I’s original creator, Steve Wozniak; 3rd Prize is the Adafruit FLORA GPS Starter Pack including a Flora motherboard, a GPS module that can also perform location datalogging, eight ultra-bright chainable RGB pixels and more.

To win, simply send a tweet naming which of the 10 semifinalists you want to win, in the following format: “I think [PROJECT NAME] should win $20,000 in the @EngadgetExpand Insert Coin Competition!” Of course while you’re at it, don’t forget to vote! To be eligible to enter, you must be 18 years of age and a U.S. resident (please peruse the full rules).

Name your inventor of choice by 5pm EST on Monday, February 25 (one entry per person, please!). We’ll choose three winners at random to win each kit prize and will notify them via Twitter. Plus, make sure to follow @EngadgetExpand for more chances to win tickets, prizes and other goodies.

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Once upon a time, the future belonged to an increasingly smaller form factor when it came to mobile phones. Now it seems the tide has changed, and larger screens continue to expand their requisite real estate on new handsets. In this week’s issue of our weekly, Jon Fingas takes a good, long look at the rise of those big screens, starting with 2002’s BlackBerry 5810. Weekly Stat charts a day with an asteroid, Eyes-On has a peek at LaCie’s collaboration with Philippe Starck and Brad Molen recounts week two with the BlackBerry Z10. We’ve just scratched the surface of the latest installment of this e-publication, so navigate to your favorite download link to procure a copy.

Distro Issue 79 PDF
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Distro in the Google Play Store
Distro in the Windows Store
Distro APK (for sideloading)
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Source: iTunes, Google Play, Windows Store

Last Friday, we announced our semifinalist pics for Engadget’s first-ever Insert Coin: New Challengers competition. We’re incredibly excited about the projects we selected, but had a hard enough time whittling the list down to 10. That’s where you come in. As far as we’re concerned, they’re all winners, but we’ve got presentation time at next month’s Expand conference in San Francisco, and we need your help knocking the list down to five finalists. It’s a diverse array of entrants, including seafaring drones, bipedal robots, 3D scanners, futuristic radiators and more.

Jump in after the break for links to posts about each of the candidates, and when you’re done, please click here to vote on your favorite. Five winners will go on to present their projects at Expand in March, for a chance to win $25,000. You have until next Wednesday, February 27 at the same time (12:30pm PST / 3:30pm EST) to cast your vote!

The Candidates:

1. cSpring: Bipedal Robo

2. Hodu: Physical therapy hardware / software combo

3. Moedls: 3D scanning for smartphones

4. Make a Play: High-tech puppet stage

5. Observos: Environmentally-aware computers

6. Radiator Labs: Personal radiator temperature controller

7. Smart Knob: Keyless door lock

8. smARTPulse: Hackable Bluetooth oximeter

9. Snapzoom: Superzooming for smartphone cameras

10. Ziphius: RC aquatic drone

Now don’t forget to vote!

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We’ve already got quite a lineup unveiled so far, but the fun doesn’t stop now, my friends — if anything, we’ll be ratcheting up the excitement as we get closer and closer to Expand in San Francisco this March 16 and 17th. We’ll have full profiles of all 10 of our Insert Coin Semi-Finalists rolling over the next few days, and your audience vote will determine which top five will also get to demo on our stage — and voting will kick off today at 12:30pm PST / 3:30pm EST! Stay tuned!

But if you still need more reasons to attend Expand, how about 10 of ’em? Followed by four more inspiring speakers you’ll get to see — all for the low, low price of 50 bucks:

• Matt Rogers: Founder & VP of Engineering, Nest
• Dave Icke: CEO, MC10
• Ryan Sullivan: Director of Product Delivery, Sprint
• John Scalzi: President, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Read on for the Engadget editors you most want to meet…

And yet there’s a whole other cadre of professionals who will be gracing our event stage, and that is the incredibly hardworking team of Engadget editors. We’ll be bringing out the majority of our crew to make the Expand magic happen — and we ran a ticket giveaway contest last week to see which of them you are most excited to meet. Here is just a short list of some of the editors you’re looking forward to colliding with in the proverbial Real World (and please stay tuned to @EngadgetExpand for more chances to win tickets and other goodies!):

And don’t forget…

• If you’re a company that would like to work with us on an exhibition or sponsorship level, please drop us a line at sponsors at engadget dot com (DIYers and small startups, please ask us about our new Indie Corner option!)
• If you’re interested in speaking at the event, please contact expand at engadget dot com to inquire
• If you’re a member of the media interested in covering Expand, please contact engadget at shiftcomm.com for more information.

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As 2012 drew to a close, we asked you creative types to let us in on your forthcoming crowdfunded projects — and boy did you deliver. We’ve spent the past week whittling down the submissions for our first-ever Insert Coin: New Challengers competition, and are pretty excited about the results. As detailed in our announcement post, we’ve chosen 10 semifinalists, who will receive a free trip to Expand next month, along with a $1,000 travel stipend. Better yet, those on the list are in the running to win a total of $25,000, including a $5,000 Reader’s Choice award and $20,000 Grand Prize, along with product reviews on this very site.

Congratulations to all the winners and a big thanks to everyone who entered — paring down the list wasn’t an easy task. We’ll be highlighting each entry further in the week to come, leading up to a Wednesday, February 20th, vote for five finalists. Skip on through after the break to check out the list of semifinalists, and we’ll see you in March!

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